Birds of paradise: The Ultimate Quest: Benedict (centre back) returned with Frank (front) to meet the Niowra people in Papua New Guinea

Fortunately, Benedict wasn’t put out. Frank explained how he’d been shot by al-Qaeda while reporting in Saudi Arabia in 2004 and Benedict talked about his own adventures.

“I mentioned Papua New Guinea,” he says. “Frank revealed that when he was shot, he told surgeons the thing he regretted most was not seeing the birds of paradise in New Guinea. I said: ‘I’m your man.’ It took us six years, but finally we got there.”

Benedict was confident he could get Frank around the remote South Pacific island as he’d lived there, with the Niowra people, 30 years earlier. While there, he underwent one of the most violent and terrifying initiation ceremonies known to man.

“I was 24 at the time,” explains the married father of three. “I wanted to be the best explorer in the world, so I went to live in the remotest place and went through the toughest ceremony on the planet.

“The Niowra have a crocodile cult. I was taken away with 30 other boys into an arena, and my chest and back were cut with bamboo blades. You end up with permanent scars like a crocodile’s scales. And that was just the start. We were beaten every day for six weeks.”

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Birds Of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest: The duo travel by canoe on the Chambri Lakes

This harrowing experience bonded him to the Niowra people, and Benedict believed they would be the best guides to get Frank through the dense forest to where the elusive birds of paradise live.

But, as becomes clear in two-part documentary Birds Of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest, once Benedict returned, he was haunted by bad memories.

“They gave me an extraordinary welcome,” he recalls. “Men dancing in headdresses, beating drums and singing. Frank said: ‘This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen’ and I said: ‘This is the song they played when they beat me.’ Instead of it being a triumphant return it was terrible.

“Coming back to their world of violence as a family man overwhelmed me. I was in shock, without anyone I could open up to. I didn’t want to ruin it for Frank. And I couldn’t talk to the Niowra.

"I’d wanted a home and they gave me hell [the initiation].

“It’s a dark place. Of the 30 people [initiated], a third of them are dead. They don’t look you in the eye, there’s a lot of anger around. The trip wasn’t hard physically for me, but it was very hard emotionally.”

Despite Benedict’s trauma, plus the difficulty of transporting a wheelchair user through deep forests, the men weren’t going to be deterred.

BBC

Birds Of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest: Locals carry Frank across grasslands in a sedan chair

“I kept thinking: ‘What am I doing? I don’t travel with companions and here I am with this guy in a wheelchair,’” says Benedict.

“If Frank was dropped even once, that would be the end of the mission. Every time he got out of a boat, or went up steps, it was a risk. But that’s why we did it. It wasn’t supposed to be easy.

“I instinctively recognised a fellow survivor in Frank. We have the common ground of having been close to death. I was shot at by Pablo Escobar’s men in Peru.

They missed me. But Frank got hit. I put my life on the line by choice. For Frank it wasn’t a choice.”

And Benedict is hoping that his burgeoning bromance with Frank can continue.

“Is it a bromance?” he laughs. “Maybe. I want Frank to eat sago grubs. They’re like big maggots and he managed to avoid them this time.

“Also, I’d like to see him on a camel. I’ve got a brilliant camel called Bert, which I own in the Gobi Desert, and I think he’d look good up there."

NEW! Birds Of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest Friday 9pm BBC2

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